Ichor Well

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “Can’t you folk tell the difference between your own critters? This ain’t your inspector. We got our own.”

  Kent scratched his head. “I don’t follow.”

  “See? This is why I shouldn’t’ve trusted you folk to know if you could trust each other or not. Fuggers never trust each other.” Lil scooped her arm down to gather up Nikita. “Come here, darlin’. We know something about these inspectors you folk down here ain’t just been keeping from us, but you’ve been keeping it from each other, mostly. These critters are smart. And they can talk, in a way. That’s what half of that tappin’ is about. And right now that fat one you folk were so happy about having along and we were so angry about having along is tap-tap-tapping out a message to some ship way up yonder. Now maybe that ship has been following us and we just ain’t heard it. Or maybe it’s just a trade ship or messenger or something that wandered near enough for the critter to hear. It don’t much matter, because it already said what it had to say, and if that ship heard it, then folk are going to be able to find this place right quick.” She looked down. “Which way is that ship headed, darlin’?”

  Nikita pointed.

  “West. Back the way we came,” Lil observed. “For all we know that ship’s headed right to Mayor Ebonwhite or someone just as bad who’s gonna send a string of ships to take all of this away from you folks.”

  “This is all a little… dubious there, Lil,” Kent said.

  “You want proof, just watch.” She looked to Nikita. “Where’d you hear that tapping? Can you smell him too?”

  Yes, Nikita tapped.

  The inspector extended a scrawny arm and pointed with her spidery middle finger at a half-finished gantry that would soon bridge the gap of the pit and form the beginnings of a crane to start harvesting buckets of ichor. Lil bounded over to it and scrambled up the side, climbing the cross-struts like a ladder until she reached the top. Once there she began throwing items aside, pitching hammers and bags of bolts off the top.

  “Nita, I think your friend there’s lost it. Maybe the fug’s gotten to her.”

  “I assure you, she’s quite sane. At least no less so than when I met her. In all honestly she’s been showing remarkable self-control through this,” Nita said.

  “Ah-ha!” Lil proclaimed.

  She threw a canvas cover off the gantry and hoisted up the purloined crate that had been hidden beneath.

  “Here’s the aye-aye-turned rat,” Lil said.

  Lil opened the crate and pulled the creature free. Once she’d maneuvered it to cling to her side, she began to climb down the structure.

  “Well I’ll be… she found it just by that inspector thing pointing it out…” Kent said quietly.

  “You… you don’t really believe any of this nonsense she’s saying,” remarked Stark as he ran up to Nita and Kent. “Inspectors are just stupid creatures who knock around looking for rotten wood. Everyone knows that.”

  “Aren’t you the man Lil said tried to tackle her on the way to the well?” Nita asked.

  “She was brandishing a gun and threatening to blow us all up. It was the sensible thing to do!”

  “And weren’t you working on the gantry construction?” Kent said, his own suspicion growing.

  “Five of us were working on the gantry!”

  “No sense guessing and accusing when we can ask someone who makes a living watching folks and snitching on them,” Lil said, pacing up to them. “What do you say, Lardo? Who’s the one who told you to do the snitching?”

  The chubby creature peered up at Lil, then out at the anxiously—if somewhat incredulously—watching group. Nikita tapped out a few encouraging comments. Finally the inspector dubbed Lardo extended a hand, pointing with his own middle finger at Stark.

  All eyes turned to the accused.

  “Y-you don’t really believe this! She could have… she probably trained it! Yeah! Trained it to point at who she tells it to point at! You could train a dog to do that. She’s just trying to turn us on each other.”

  “We’re kind of stuck in the middle of the forest with you folk. Seein’ as how we’d have a hell of a time finding our way out without one of you folk at the wheel, I ain’t eager to see folk start getting killed. But seems to me you and Branca there ain’t really part of the team.”

  “What was the message that thing was supposed to have delivered?” Kent asked.

  “‘Report forwarded to Inspector Lucius P. Alabaster. Reply intended only for Inspector 58978. We have reached the well. Two crewmembers are present. Both survived.’ Then it gave the current time and date,” Nita said.

  “What good would that do?”

  “If there was an airship overhead, and Nikita there says there was, then even if it was just passing by, with the timing of the message and the knowledge of that ship’s route, a person could get a reasonably close estimate of where we are in the forest right now.”

  “If that’s true…” Kent said.

  “It isn’t true!” cried Branca from the ground. “They’re manipulating us! They want to turn us on each other one by one! What they’re saying is ridiculous!”

  “We’ve already established you wanted to kill us,” Nita said, resisting the urge to punctuate the observation with a kick. “That you would speak out in defense of another accused helps our argument, not yours.”

  “Yeah. So quit your yelling or you’ll get the first of them black eyes I was promising…” Lil tipped her head to the side. “Actually, do fug folk get black eyes? Oh, yeah, that fella over there still has his from that brawl back when we were talking specifics with the cap’n.”

  “Listen. I know it’s a bit much to swallow. I was the one who worked it out in the first place, and I think I was only able to accept it because these things are new to me and it wasn’t any more absurd than a continent mired in poison. But let’s set aside how we got this information for now. What else do we know? Does anyone know this Alabaster person?”

  “He’s a… what do you call it? One of those sorts who makes his money off other folks’ business,” Kent said.

  “A freeloader?” Lil said.

  “No… investor, that’s it. Spreads his money around like fertilizer and gets fat off what grows. You spend much time in the northwest parts of the fug, you’ll probably find your way to one end or the other of a string he’s got dangling from his bank account. Probably if you dig deep enough every last one of us has been working for him at one time or another.”

  “Is he someone we should worry about?” Nita asked.

  “You know my rule. If it’s in the fug, worry about it unless you have a reason not to, not the other way around,” Lil said.

  “Him being the investor type, if he really did get that message mentioning a well, he’s liable to want to claim it for himself and make heaps of money off it,” Kent said.

  “Has he got the resources to make that happen?”

  “No doubt.”

  “Then that’s a problem.”

  “That’s assuming this is all true,” said Stark.

  “Keep denying it, pal. You’re really convincing us you ain’t a rat,” Lil said.

  “Again, let us focus on other things,” Nita said. “We suspect Branca and Stark. Have they worked for Alabaster in the past?”

  “Like I said, most of us have, if you dig deep enough,” Kent said.

  “Fine, then is there a connection between the two of them?”

  He scratched his head. “Not that I… hang on a tick… What’s that fella’s name? The one with the stupid hat. Left him back with Digger… Bludo! That’s the fella. He’s the one who recruited both of them. Made a pretty strong argument at the time.”

  At the mention of the recruiter, a flash of concern came across the faces of both Stark and Branca.

  “You folk ain’t played much poker down here, have you?” Lil said with a grin.

  “I think we’ve got to entertain the possibility that this Bludo character and anyone he handpicked might be working for Alab
aster,” Nita said. “Are there any other Well Diggers he picked out?”

  “Me,” came a voice from beside one of the munitions carts.

  All eyes turned to a fug woman who was very tall, even by fug standards. She’d kept quiet and mostly to herself during the whole journey. She had a precise and elegant weapon, a fug-made rifle, and stood with a wide stance and a steady grip. From her vantage, any member of the Well Diggers who made a move against her could easily be picked off.

  “Nerys!” Kent barked.

  “Aw, dang it! Both fug women on the crew are rats! And here I was starting to think maybe it was just the fug men who were evil as a rule,” Lil moaned, seemingly more bothered by the identity of the remaining traitor than her weapon.

  “I don’t know how these surface dwellers figured it out, but what they said is true. These inspectors can deliver messages, and we were instructed to deliver one just as soon as we arrived. Not that it matters,” said Nerys.

  “Because if Bludo’s working for Alabaster, then the man’s known roundabout where this place is for weeks,” Kent said.

  “So there’s no sense resisting. This whole well was going to be an Alabaster concern in a few weeks anyway, so anyone with weapons, drop them. We’re all going to go forward according to plan. Build this place up, get it running.”

  “Why should we do that?” growled Kent. “One member of the industry is as bad as another. If I wanted someone else holding the reins of my destiny, I’d’ve stuck around in the coal mine.”

  “Because if you do a good and proper job getting this well running, Alabaster will make it worth your while. And if you don’t, I’ll put a bullet in your brain.”

  “See, that’s a lousy thing to threaten. You can’t keep a gun on us all the whole time we’re working, and you can’t get the work done if you kill us all,” Lil said.

  “I would shut my mouth if I were you,” said the latest traitor. “You’re the one person Alabaster said he specifically wanted dead. You weren’t supposed to survive that lure we gave you. Technically Alabaster wanted the Calderan alive, but I’d have considered her an acceptable loss.”

  “Jabber jabber jabber,” Lil said, casually pulling her coat shut and stuffing her hands in her pockets. “Like I said before. Pull the trigger or don’t. You won’t be the first person to shoot at me, and you sure ain’t gonna be the last. And as soon as you pull that trigger, regardless of who you hit, the rest of us are going to bum-rush you. If they know what’s good for them anyway.”

  “Stark, untie Branca and the two of you grab guns.”

  “Before you do that, Stark, you probably ought to take a look at my right hand.”

  Stark and the others flicked their gaze where she’d indicated and discovered she was gripping her pistol, and it was pointed directly at him.

  “Bit of a standoff we’ve got here,” Lil said.

  It was unsettling how truly calm and composed the deckhand seemed in the center of this precarious situation. It was a long way from the bundle of anxiety she’d been just minutes before when she feared the breakup of the ship’s crew. The utter lack of fear had a bizarre effect on those around her. It was subtle, but as the only person not stretched to the limit, the overall feeling was that she must be in a position of control. This simple fact was almost certainly the only reason the rifle had not yet been fired.

  “You’re going to lose this one, you realize,” Lil said. “My gun’s lighter than yours. Your arms are going to get tired first. You’re just lucky we didn’t start this chat with my gun already pointing at you, or you’d already be bleeding. It’s the turn from Stark here to you that’d give you your chance.”

  Lil continued to observe the two threats without any evident concern while everyone else remained perfectly still, too worried even to breathe. Slowly, Nita began to drum her fingernails on the handle of one of her wrenches.

  “And that assumes I ain’t got any other tricks up my sleeve,” Lil said.

  #

  A few minutes passed with very little change in the vicinity of the well. Branca was still bound, Stark was still holding his ground, and Lil was still brandishing her weapon without any indication of concern. The one thing that had escalated was the uncertainty and agitation of Nerys, who clearly felt she ought to be the one calling the shots.

  “I am through playing your games, Cooper. You will lower your weapon and do as I say!” she cried.

  “Quit yelling. You’ve had a rifle pointed at me for a while now, Nerys. Do you really think the only reason I ain’t done what you said is because you ain’t asking loud enough?” Lil said.

  “Nerys, I think we all know that the only way this is going to end without blood is if you lower that gun and listen to reason,” Nita said.

  “Who says I want things to end without blood. You two are monsters! How many fug folk have you killed?”

  Lil tipped her head in thought. “I don’t keep score of that sort of stuff. Gunner does. When he shows up you can ask him. I know it ain’t near as many fuggers as surface folk though. Wailers, raiders, and pirates like them are the folk we usually shoot at. And only when they shoot first. Cap’n hates wasting ammunition. How many folk you killed?”

  “… None.”

  “That’s another reason you might not want to point a gun at me.”

  Nita tapped her fingers a few more times. Lil tapped her own in response.

  “All right, Nerys, I’m just about sick of all this posturing and such. By my count, you got one gun and three things to shoot at.”

  “There’s just the two of you.”

  Lil flashed a smile. “Wrong.”

  She snapped her fingers and fell backward. At the same moment, Nita dove to one side and Nikita burst from beneath Lil’s jacket. Nerys pulled the trigger of her rifle, but having been wound steadily tighter by the events of the prior few minutes, she wasn’t nearly in the right state of mind to adjust her aim quickly or accurately. Her first round struck the dirt, raising a cloud of dust and gravel.

  Nita scrambled toward one of the carts, moving in a crouching run. Lil rolled aside and kicked her legs up, rolling back onto her shoulders and springing back to her feet. Nikita, her fur standing on end and her enormous eyes wide with fear, skittered under a cart.

  Nerys’s panic was evident on her face, but she retained enough sanity to keep her rifle pointed roughly in Lil’s direction. On the surface this seemed like a sound decision, as Lil was the one with the pistol. The fug woman hadn’t factored Lil’s nimbleness into the equation, however. She managed a second and third shot with the repeater rifle, but neither came anywhere near the sprightly deckhand. All the wild shots managed to do was send the rest of the fug folk running for cover. Even Stark, who ostensibly should have been attempting to tackle either of the Wind Breaker’s crewmembers, chose the better part of valor and ran for his life.

  If Nerys had been looking in the appropriate direction, she would have seen a frenzied ball of fluff streaking toward her from under a cart. Instead she only noticed Nikita when the aye-aye had scurried up her leg and sunk a set of chisel-like teeth into her thigh. She screamed, and if the barrel of the rifle would have been short enough, she’s probably would have pumped a round into her own leg. Instead she took one hand from her weapon to claw at the attacking creature. She scarcely had time to wrap her fingers around Nikita’s crooked tail before Nita struck her from the side in a flying tackle. The three of them tumbled across the ground.

  Nita, who lacked the reach advantage but made up for it in weight and leverage, came out on top when the tumble finished. Nerys reached aside and pulled a knife from her belt, but Nita caught her wrist. They struggled against one another for control of the weapon, but it didn’t last long.

  “Drop the knife or you’ll be breathing through a new hole in your head, Nerys,” Lil ordered breathlessly.

  The traitorous fug woman glanced aside and found the muzzle of Lil’s pistol mere inches from her face. She wisely let the knife fall to the ground
.

  “Now everybody just calm down,” Lil said. “We’re all going to put down our guns and—”

  “Both of you! You drop your weapons!” raved Stark.

  They turned to find him standing beside one of the carts, now armed with a rifle of his own from the substantial armory that the expedition had brought along. Lil then looked past him and grinned again.

  “Pff. Took you long enough,” she said.

  Stark turned to see who Lil was talking to and received the full brunt of a sucker punch, courtesy of Kent. The blow dropped Stark like a sack of potatoes, and left Kent shaking his hand.

  “You’ve got a hard head, Stark,” he said, flexing his fist.

  “Good to know at least one of you folk doesn’t want us dead,” Lil said, keeping her pistol trained on Nerys while Nita quickly bound her hands.

  The tension, having reached its boiling point, slowly simmered down again and the rest of the Well Diggers took stock of the situation. Branca, Nerys, and Stark were gathered together and plopped down in the center of a tight circle formed by the remaining members of the expedition. Nita, Lil, and Kent stood at one end of the ring. The rest bunched rather uncertainly at the other side, watching the girls with roughly the same caution as they had watched the creature that had attacked during the trip.

  “I’m sorry about all that. I had no idea about any of this,” Kent said.

  “You don’t got to waste too much breath trying to convince me you didn’t know something, Kent. That thick head of yours was one of the first things I worked out about you back at that Ph’lack’try. I reckon that’s why you were palling around with Donald. He’s even thicker.”

  “I suppose I deserve that… Now, we need to chat about this…” He looked to Nikita. “… inspector nonsense.”

  “It’s real simple. These critters tap out messages to each other, who tap them out to other critters, until they get to someone who knows what to do with whatever it is they say.”

  “They talk by tapping…” Kent said.

  “How they do it isn’t the important part. The important part is they’ve been spying on all of us and most of you for as long as they’ve been on ships, and now a creature on a ship that passed overhead is carrying a message about where we are,” Nita said. “Add to that the fact that we’ve got three traitors to your cause tied up here and at least one back at the headquarters, it seems likely this Alabaster person is going to take swift and decisive action to keep the well from slipping through his fingers.”